Let’s start today by passing along a bit of news. America Unearthed host Scott Wolter visited Westford, Massachusetts with a crew from Committee Films to shoot a segment for the upcoming season of his television show. According to the Westford Eagle, which incorrectly identified his show (twice!) as airing on the Discovery Channel and the History Channel (it airs on H2), Wolter was in town last week to observe a newly discovered marking on the stone housing the Westford Knight.

Westford firefighter David Christiana and Westford Knight devotee Shane Greenslade were cleaning the rock in June when they came across a strange, small marking. Christiana wondered if the new marking could be what is known as the "hooked X," a cross-shaped etching with a line jutting out the top left-hand side.

And where might they have gotten that idea? Oh, right: From Scott Wolter. Wolter planned to determine whether the supposed “Hooked X®” was a natural feature or an intentional carving, and if the latter, how old it is. The so-called Hooked X® is a variant of an X-shaped rune for the letter A and is best known from its use on the Kensington Rune Stone. The shape is not known to have been used before the nineteenth century. The name Hooked X® was trademarked by Scott Wolter, but it has escaped into the broader conspiracy culture, where it has even been claimed to represent the key to understanding Armageddon when superimposed on a map of the Middle East. The Westford Knight’s rough carving of a sword and possibly a human face was first attributed to Native Americans before fringe historians later claimed it to be the work of first Vikings and then medieval Scots. Archaeologists believe that most of the image is the result of natural cracks and fissures, with only the so-called “handle” of the sword an actual punch carving. The Westford Knight became part of the Hooked X® conspiracy when Sinclair extremists decided that the alleged carving of a knight on the rock was made by the party of Henry I Sinclar, Jarl of Orkney, during his fourteenth century tour of America at the behest of the suppressed order of Knights Templar, for which there is no documentary or archaeological evidence. The story originates in an eighteenth century attempt to manufacture a historical basis for the sixteenth century Zeno hoax, in which Venetian nobleman Nicolò Zeno the Younger combined elements from several Renaissance works on the North Atlantic to provide his fourteenth century ancestors with a suitably glorious set of achievements to rival that of the hated Genoese sailor Christopher Columbus. The younger Zeno admitted in the hoax document itself that he had fabricated the extant text, whose current form he attributed to childhood memories of medieval letters that he had destroyed:

…being still a boy when they came into my hands, and not understanding what they were, I tore them in pieces and destroyed them, as boys will do, which I cannot, except with the keenest regret, now call to mind. Nevertheless, in order that so fair a memorial of such things may not be lost, I have placed in order in the above narrative what I have been able to recover of the aforesaid materials… (trans. Fred W. Lucas)

It sure sounds to me like a solid foundation for rewriting medieval history! Having now done our due diligence monitoring cable TV’s search for more variant-A rune carvings (the “Hooked X®”), I’d like to take a moment to talk about a completely different part of the cable TV lineup, one that mercifully doesn’t pretend to be nonfiction. Earlier this year the new El Rey network entered an overcrowded field of scripted fare with its remake of From Dusk Till Dawn, and I gave the show a largely positive review after its season finale. So I thought I’d try the network’s new series, Matador, about a DEA agent who goes undercover for the CIA as a player for a Los Angeles pro soccer team to spy on its criminal owner. The show turned out to be a gloriously preposterous throwback to the action dramas of the 1970s and 1980s, and its majority Latino cast gives it a cultural specificity that papers over plot holes that would sink the show had it centered on more generic characters, like Tony Bravo’s unfortunate Agency handlers, played by perhaps the two blandest and most stilted actors on cable TV. The somewhat similar but more self-serious Covert Affairs has more coherent plots, but it’s a lot less fun. Covert Affairs would never joke about Matador the way Matador joked about it. I bring this up because the latest episode decided to reveal that the overarching plot of the season isn’t, as first hinted, a stereotypical drug cartel but an archaeological treasure hunt. It pains me to say that the writers managed to screw this up badly. The villain (Alfred Molina) burned down a field containing $20 million in coca plants in order to search for what the bland, blonde actress playing a CIA agent described as ruins of a “pre-Olmec” or early Olmec culture from “two thousand years ago” in “Nicaragua.” Tony and his teammates played soccer on what another villain, a drug kingpin, described as the ruins of a Mesoamerican ball court. Three errors in one line! Since the show does not indicate that they mean the CIA agent to be wrong, the writers seem to have confused 2000 BCE, the actual time of the pre-Olmec period, with “two thousand years ago.” The pre-Olmec period lasted from approximately 2500 BCE to around 1600 BCE. The Olmec and their predecessors little to nothing to do with Nicaragua, however. The prehistoric people of the area are considered an Isthmo-Colombian people, and while they may have had some influence from Mesoamerica, the area is not thought to have had Mesoamerican settlers until after 500 CE, so finding a pre-Olmec city in Nicaragua certainly would be important! Generally speaking, Mesoamerica’s borders ended in El Salvador and Honduras. Also, to my knowledge, there are no Mesoamerican ball courts in Nicaragua, though for fictional purposes I imagine we’re close enough to El Salvador, where some do exist, to let that one slide. I don’t expect absolute fidelity to facts on an action show, but maybe not confusing 2000 years before present for 2000 BCE would be a step in the right direction. I’d like to finish by offering a few thoughts on FX’s The Strain, which I haven’t talked much about since its premiere. On the same El Rey network, they’ve been running an interview with Guillermo del Toro, the creator of The Strain, the co-author of its source novels, and the man in charge of the program. I watched it last night, and I was struck by his discussion of The Strain, in which he gushed about the attention he gives to designing the monsters and “color correcting each episode.” He uttered nary a word about the plot, the story, or the characters, and his choice of focus is reflected on screen. The show’s visuals are rich and often compelling, but man, oh man that plot! It’s so preposterous I don’t know where to begin. (And remember, I just praised Matador for being ridiculous.) So cell phone and the internet are all taken down by a single hacker, and virtuallyno one on the show notices? If anything produces outrage, chaos, and confusion, it’s when cell or internet outages occur—yet none of the main characters seem vaguely aware that the internet exists. The stock market supposedly crashed because of a single incident with a single airplane, sowing economic chaos? What world are they living in? We’ve had entire wars happen out here in the real world without causing a blip in stock prices. The elderly vampire hunter is strong enough to take on the vampire menace at the age of, what, 90? In flashbacks, he is shown as a young man in a Nazi concentration camp. Even if we generously assume he was supposed to be 15 there (though the actor looked 25), he’d be no younger than 84 now. He must be on the Jack Lalanne workout regimen. I really expected better from The Strain. The moment genitals started falling off into toilets, I realized that Del Toro had written a thirteen year old boy’s immature fantasy version of a vampire story, and everything that followed basically confirmed that idea—the story, as presented on screen (I have not read the books), is adolescent and immature, a bunch of clichés assembled in service of grotesquerie. The whole thing is full of absurdities, plot holes, and head-slapping moments, but Del Toro is right about one thing: It has beautiful color correction.

"The so-called Hooked X® is a variant of an X-shaped rune for the letter A and is best known from its use on the Kensington Rune Stone. The shape is not known to have been used before the nineteenth century."

Jason, your ignorance is showing, because you are presupposing that all the possible medieval uses of the hooked x are fictional, as hoaxes. In fact, neither the KRS nor the Viking Map, nor any of the other Nordic evidences representing "fringe" thinking have been proven to be fakes by skeptics such as yourself. In my opinion, you are overreaching into the arena of skeptical smugness here.

Most recently, I see a stronger connection between Greenland and Vinland, and I see that Vinland was/is recognized much longer than most would like to admit...several hundred years. My theory is developing into thinking that the Greenlanders may also have had great influence in the placement of the cluster of stonehole rocks along the Whetstone River in far SE South Dakata, precisely where both the St. Lawrence approach and Hudson Bay approaches (waterways) dwindle down to impressive lakes...in essence, converging, which could also be interpreted as represented a geographical location central to North America should anyone be interested in beginning a brand new empire.

Jason, you're missing something: the extreme likelihood that the hooked x is very real to history--to medieval history, that is, and on both sides of the Pond.

Columbus was an imposter.

Reply

666

8/14/2014 06:05:00 am

The Hooked X is everywhere
In The Beginning was The Hooked X

Reply

EP

8/14/2014 06:30:04 am

"the hooked x is very real to history"

Sieg heil!

https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t25432/

Reply

666

8/14/2014 06:31:44 am

The Egyptians knew about it...
http://www.greatdreams.com/blog-2013-3/hooked-cross.jpg

EP

8/14/2014 06:48:51 am

What a coincidence! Scott Wolter knew about The Barnes Review, but took part in their conference. (Because who are we kidding? Of course he knew!)

.

8/14/2014 06:58:18 am

be net-i-quette nice to GUNN if only becuz between A.D 500
and A.D 1500 we have tonz of cool Christians and Pagans
making Hooked "X"s at times as they write down things.
Gunn -----here's lookin' at you, kid!!! --- long tyme no see!!!
loose lips sink ships. Lauren Bacall was a great actress.
she was almost as good as was Bette Davis in my book!

Reply

Clint Knapp

8/14/2014 07:18:43 am

Gunn, good to see you. Really, I'm glad you're well. Just a minor thing to remember:

The burden of proof is not on the skeptic to prove false, but on the claimant to prove true.

Reply

EP

8/14/2014 07:24:08 am

Also, if you really think that Jason is "presupposing that all the possible medieval uses of the hooked x are fictional, as hoaxes", then you have problems with reading comprehension.

He, along with everyone else not living in fantasy land, is presupposing that there are alternative explanations - aside from the glorious Sinclair-Jesus-Akhenaten family.

Only Me

8/14/2014 08:20:40 am

Gunn, you said:

[ In fact, neither the KRS nor the Viking Map, nor any of the other Nordic evidences representing "fringe" thinking have been proven to be fakes by skeptics such as yourself].

As Clint pointed out, it is the onus of those proclaiming them real to prove they are not.

Using your argument, however, can you prove Columbus was an impostor...and precisely what or whom he was impersonating?

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Only Me

8/14/2014 08:22:58 am

Ignore that "not" at the end of my second statement. I goofed.

Clint Knapp

8/14/2014 08:49:04 am

Ships have been sinking since men began building them. The Titanic was a real ship, not just a movie.

You've become even less coherent than usual. Please , have some consideration for other people reading this blog and the man hosting it. This is just ridiculous.

.

8/14/2014 08:59:01 am

should i be more considerate of the dull neo-nazis who may
thusly post here or nearly everyone else, including a few
trotsky-ites? i know S.W often stirs up a WASP's next of hurt!
you are correct. i should be more quiet. they often put Aspies
on trains and send them into places like dachau on whim!!!

.

8/14/2014 09:03:38 am

again a typo

as a savor = as I savor

i should cool it.

i'm sounding almost

dyslexic and ill lettered.

EP

8/14/2014 09:33:19 am

Confirming that I'm a dull Neo-Nazi. The Neo-Naziest!

EP

8/14/2014 10:12:20 am

Sieg heil!

https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t25432/

(Scott Wolter knew.)

!!!!

8/14/2014 10:53:51 am

SXXg hXXl!

http$://wWw.st0rmfront.Arg/forVm/t25432/

(Scott Wolter knew.)

____________________________

EP ----- i really feel you may be very correct about this.
even so... i had to politely censor the StormFront link.
SW has some very unusual "fellow travelers" at times!!!!

Joe

8/14/2014 12:17:34 pm

As you have stated “which could also be interpreted as represented a geographical location central to North America should anyone be interested in beginning a brand new empire.”

I have seen you made this statement before and it always was a puzzling assumption. First how did they determine it was the central location on the North American continent? Did they travel and map the entire continent to determine the size and shape of a land they have never been too then once they did return to SE South Dakota to place these stone holes? Second you stated in this statement and in previously that they chose this central location as a capital to their new empire. Again why would these North Men chose a geographically central location as their new capital? Wouldn't it be more likely that they chose a location that had better access to major water ways for travel and trade?

Reply

Cathleen Anderson

8/14/2014 04:01:55 pm

I think there is enough evidence out there to support the conclusion that they are hoaxes. You have never provided anything other than opinion in any of your posts as far as I can tell.

Reply

EP

8/14/2014 06:04:25 am

"Hooked X®... has even been claimed to represent the key to understanding Armageddon when superimposed on a map of the Middle East."

Jason, your ignorance is showing, because you are presupposing that all the possible contemporary Encarta photoshops of the hooked x are fictional, as hoaxes. In fact, neither the Tom Kovach nor Renew America, nor any of the other "Nordic" evidences representing fringe thinking have been proven to be fakes by skeptics such as yourself. In my opinion, you are overreaching into the arena of skeptical smugness here.

http://www.renewamerica.com/images/columns/091012kovach3.jpg

Obama is a gay Muslim communist devil-worshipper!

Reply

Clint Knapp

8/14/2014 06:37:09 am

After the second episode of The Strain, a couple friends and I had a good hour's worth of conversation solely on the premise that none of us could quite figure out if we liked it or not. I was the most optimistic going in, just for my love of the genre and generally forgiving view toward Del Toro's brand for exactly the same reason you mention; he makes fun monsters.

By the end of the conversation, still on the fence, we all agreed to watch the third episode. Then the goth-rocker's penis fell off, the vampire-hunter gets court approval for carrying a sword around and menacing everyone he goes near, and oh yeah; "Eph" continues to bumble around without telling anyone that there are four-inch long death worms infesting all those bodies that disappeared. Anyone.

No "Hey, boss, seriously. We have death worms on our hands and I have one in this box, " or anything! He's literally the worst CDC agent ever written; and I'm even including that idiocy they threw into the tail-end of the first season of The Walking Dead to explain zombies to people (the comic never included an explanation, at least as of the 115th issue or so when I stopped reading).

Good luck to you if you're still watching. I just couldn't take it anymore. Even if it's intentionally bad, it's bad at being intentionally bad.

Reply

CHV

8/14/2014 06:46:15 am

H2 is re-airing a number of AU episodes today. I could only watch the one about the Grand Canyon for a few minutes before I had to switch it off after watching Wolter beat his chest in defiance of non-existent black helicopters guarding non-existent Egyptian treasure in a non-existent canyon cave - all engineered, of course, by a non-existent Smithsonian cover-up.

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EP

8/14/2014 06:47:34 am

Is that the one with the moderately hot helicopter pilot?

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CHV

8/14/2014 06:52:28 am

Might be. Like I said, I turned it off.

Wes

8/14/2014 09:10:29 am

Gosh, I wonder if Wolter will determine the hooked x is authentic and quite old??????

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Clint Knapp

8/14/2014 09:27:11 am

I'm anticipating new developments in the field of arcaheopetrography will allow him to more accurately date the X-shaped scratches to a date at least 300 years older than the "knight" itself.

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EP

8/14/2014 09:37:26 am

Watch Wolter declare this hooked x a fake just to stick it to all the skeptics! (Too bad the Sinclairs would probably disown him, leaving him without a place at the court of the coming Empire...)

PNO TECH

8/14/2014 09:29:24 am

I'm curious: is the exact form(proportions, angles, etc) of the X trademarked? If so, where did he(Scott Wolter) get them? An average of all the H-Xs he's seen?
Always wondering about that input when I see people overlaying figures on maps. GIGO, anyone?

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Clint Knapp

8/14/2014 09:35:13 am

He holds a trademark on the term "Hooked X", not the shape itself.

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EP

8/14/2014 09:52:37 am

Does anyone know the details of his copyright?

Clint Knapp

8/14/2014 10:03:02 am

Jason does! A+E even slapped him with a cease-and-desist trying to protect Wolter's trademark; despite not being his publisher!

we could call it the "CaptnHooked X" or the "dangClever X"
or the "fancy pants" X and have it understood as being very
"hooked" but not whore'd in dreadful manner. Gen'l Hooker
was a brave Civil War general. He once was a lowly kernel...

It's true. Wolter registered the word phrase "Hooked X" as a trademark for use in book titles. A+E Networks tried to interpret that as including the shape of the Hooked X, but their lawyer eventually conceded that the symbol can't be trademarked. You can view Wolter's trademark documents by going to the US Patent & Trademark Office website and searching for his name or for Hooked X.

EP

8/14/2014 11:19:55 am

Oh, I already did that! I even looked up Wolter's lawyer (a respectable chap, if I do say so myself). I was really interested in the details of what he could and couldn't claim...

Incidentally, at least a few academic publications predating his copyright use the term to discuss ancient markings of various sorts. So I doubt he can claim even inventing the term in reference to his hobby-horse.

PNO TECH

8/14/2014 02:50:19 pm

So the armegeddon guy IS just Makin Stuff Up: "wait, here's 4 significant points in a vaguely rectangular form: I can draw an X!"
Good job if you can stomach the hypocrisy.
From the first day I read of the H-X here, I've refused to refer to it by the name TM-ed by He Who Shall Not Be Believed. Because: SW. Now I know what to call it in my head: "the Hoo-X"!

Epstein, who aided Allied forces in the Nuremberg trials, was placed under arrest "for failing to disperse." Eight others were also arrested.

"I've been doing this since I was a teenager. I didn't think I would have to do it when I was 90," Epstein told The Nation during her arrest. "We need to stand up today so that people won't have to do this when they're 90."

Epstein is currently an activist and a vocal supporter of the Free Gaza Movement.

Tensions rose in Ferguson on Monday night after Missouri Governor Jay Nixon announced that the National Guard had been called in to help police protests.

Several people were arrested as protests ramped up, including Scott Olson, a photographer working for Getty Images.

President Obama addressed reporters on Monday and condemned the arrest of journalists covering Ferguson in the days since Michael Brown was shot and killed. He said he would be monitoring the National Guard presence to make it is "used in a limited and appropriate way."

"There is no excuse for excessive force by police," Obama said."

EP

8/18/2014 04:21:27 pm

We need cleanup in aisle ".", please!

Gunn

8/14/2014 11:30:33 am

Only Me:

"As Clint pointed out, it is the onus of those proclaiming them real to prove they are not.

Using your argument, however, can you prove Columbus was an impostor...and precisely what or whom he was impersonating?"

Only Me, when someone is as positive with his skepticism as Jason at times seems to be, the onus is also on him to prove any or all of the evidences are fakes.

For example, though many people believe the KRS is fake, many also believe it is real...and it has never been absolutely proven to be fake. The same can be said of the Vinland Map. There is still plenty of room for open consideration. Yet, Jason already has the firm answers.

I know you see the problem here.

Concerning Columbus, we know he was supposedly looking for India or thereabouts, without any success. The short overland Panama route was not taken by him to the Pacific Ocean, I suppose because he was a sailor, mostly. I think he was lost much of the time because he may have been sidetracked by the lure of gold.

On the surface, it seems inconceivable that Scandinavians were already exploring around America hundreds of years before Columbus showed up, but this is exactly what "fringe" evidences is revealing for those who have eyes to see. For example, the KRS is dated 130 years before Columbus, and the many associated stoneholes may date even back to the Viking age, which ended well before the carving of the KRS (by 250 years).

Columbus was merely flirting with the southern reaches of America, by water. By contrast, the Scandinavians were traversing far inland hundreds of years earlier.

I don't think it is likely that Columbus was completely unaware of earlier Scandinavian explorations into the region going back hundreds of years. Probable existing geographical mapping knowledge at the time may render Columbus an imposter more interested in gold than in relocating anything relating to Vinland.

Maybe Columbus was supposed to be looking for hooked x's....

Reply

EP

8/14/2014 11:36:52 am

"as positive with his skepticism as Jason at times seems to be"

Could you like us to an example or two, highlighting the passages where Jason's being "positive with his skepticism"?

"though many people believe the KRS is fake, many also believe it is real...and it has never been absolutely proven to be fake. There is still plenty of room for open consideration."

Yep, the fact that lots of people believe something is relevant to whether there's room for open consideration.

"Yet, Jason already has the firm answers."

You realize that would make Jason the opposite of a skeptic, right?

Also, what would YOU do? Would YOU attend a conference with Holocaust deniers to promote your favorite theory?

Reply

Only Me

8/14/2014 02:11:55 pm

Just so we're on the same page, your *speculating* Columbus had knowledge of the KRS party's previous exploration of North America, and although he was looking for a route to India, he dilly-dallied around South America looking for gold, like the Spanish before him? When he *maybe*, should have been looking for evidence of said prior party's inland adventures?

I'm going to guess this is predicated on the idea he may have had Templar ties, first put forth due to his florid penmanship, then *allegedly* because of his wife.

Or, at the risk of affronting you, is this because you might believe there is some Ivory Tower supported "Columbus First" paradigm? I could be wrong, but I'm almost certain (perhaps cosmically!) that L'Anse aux Meadows put that to rest.

Columbus's personal or political motivations don't take away from the fact he was an explorer that signaled the beginning of European expansion into North America.

Reply

EP

8/14/2014 02:21:24 pm

@ Only Me

Cosmic Certainty vs Skeptical Smugness!

(Whoever wins, we lose.)

Clint Knapp

8/14/2014 04:25:49 pm

The Rock That Shall Not Be Named has also never been proven absolutely authentic, Gunn. It took a geologist pretending he invented his own "new science" that he still to this day refuses to detail for the public record to convince a large number of those people who believe it to be real. Again, the burden of proof is on the claimant, and none have been able to satisfactorily do so.

As Only Me points out, no one disputes Scandinavians found the continent first. It is in school text books ranging from K-12, after all. What is contested is the fact there is no supportable evidence for further expansion westward that doesn't rely entirely on supposition and speculation.

For Columbus to have been a fraud one would have to demonstrate that he was aware of said voyage and purposely didn't tell anyone. If he was aware of it, the fact he arrived almost three thousand miles off target from the only confirmed Scandinavian landing does not bode well for the accuracy of any such alleged maps and descriptions.

Let us not forget; even your stone-hole hypothesis proves nothing until you can demonstrate another example of the method having been used in a contemporary time period by the same peoples you claim used it for the same purpose. Until then, it's a nice story, but utterly unsupportable.

Just a few points to bear in mind. I really did miss these debates. It's so much nicer than the incoherent spam.

Now, just for fun, I direct you toward a little movie called Valhalla Rising. Mads Mikkelsen gives a wonderful performance as One Eye- a mute Norse warrior captured by Christian Crusaders in 1000 A.D. and forced to join their search for a Crusade- which goes horribly awry when they wind up drifting for many days in fog and coming upon the New World entirely by accident.

Scandinavia and Spain are nowhere near each other, at all. I think it's much more likely Columbus was unaware of them reaching America.

Reply

***

8/15/2014 02:41:52 pm

Columbus actually traveled up to London to solicit
the backing for his historic voyage. Spain at its leisure
backed him. The intelligent and educated people
spoke Latin, I am not going into the Wycliffe Bible or
its impact on the English language, I merely point out
having a Bible in one's native language was one of the
goals of the early reformers who are Protestant. The
legends and myths in translation of Scandinavia had
often reached England. There was wealth of information.

[jad]

8/15/2014 02:36:24 pm

Gunn, good fieldwork and careful procedures can
vindicate or disprove a given hypothesis, the door
is still open for an unbiased Ph.D paper that has
no political connection or untoward associations
to it. unfortunately the issue is politically polarized.
the politics of this is once again entering into and
disrupting the better fieldwork. The earlier voyages
were well known and talked about by the literate few.

Reply

Steve StC

8/14/2014 04:09:56 pm

Jason claims, "The Westford Knight became part of the Hooked X® conspiracy when Sinclair extremists decided that the alleged carving of a knight on the rock was made by the party of Henry I Sinclar, Jarl of Orkney, during his fourteenth century tour of America at the behest of the suppressed order of Knights Templar…"

Absolute BS, Jason. The two are many decades apart. Scott's Hooked X first appears the year of the Atlantic Conference in Halifax - 2008. Somehow, you're confusing this… maybe it's the slap-dash way you're writing it, because just later you state the Westford Knight was an 18th century "attempt."

Have you seen the sword on the stone, Jason? Of course you haven't. That's not necessary before passing judgement upon it from your clever perch - your keyboard and Wikipedia. It's clearly a hole-punch sword, and while I'm no expert on sword design, others with more knowledge claim it's medieval in the shape of the hilt.

In other news, it's amazing how many of your acolytes are now resorting to crap comments like this, "Watch Wolter declare this hooked x a fake just to stick it to all the skeptics! (Too bad the Sinclairs would probably disown him, leaving him without a place at the court of the coming Empire…)" That adds so much to the discourse.

Later, Jason-and-his-keyboard wrote, "The comments on this post got way too far off topic, and I deleted off-topic posts and some that I simply couldn't understand. Let's try to stay on topic."

It's way beyond that.

See the lovely spat between EP and the person who goes by the "." (period) symbol. I just love it when the dogs turn on one another.

Jason-and-his-keyboard attract the very best kind of people.

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EP

8/14/2014 04:24:45 pm

"it's amazing how many of your acolytes are now resorting to crap comments like this, "Watch Wolter declare this hooked x a fake just to stick it to all the skeptics! (Too bad the Sinclairs would probably disown him, leaving him without a place at the court of the coming Empire…)" That adds so much to the discourse."

Aw, thank you, sweetie!

I forget, have you told us what you think about the fact that Scott Wolter took part in The Barnes Review conference alongside Holocaust deniers in spite of having been warned about who they were? Is *that* where all the best people hang out?

Reply

Clint Knapp

8/14/2014 04:45:58 pm

Good to see Steve-and-HIS-keyboard don't deny either the flimsiness Sinclair extremism or the fictional nature of Henry Sinclair, his Jarlship, or his journey.

So, what exactly is the purpose behind your DNA study, Steve? There must be a reason in there somewhere for working so hard to segregate people by the degrees of their St. Clair-hood.

"That's not necessary before passing judgement upon it from your clever perch - your keyboard and Wikipedia."
"I just love it when the dogs turn on one another."
"Jason-and-his-keyboard attract the very best kind of people."

That last one always kills me, since you, by virtue of coming here, are one of those "very best kind of people". As for adding to the discourse, you're the last person who should be complaining.

Here's the sum of your contributions (and argument style):

1) An unimaginative spewage of rhetorical insults. Nearly every post.
2) Repetition of accusations that you feel justify (1).

How about instead of standing there windmilling your arms uselessly, you learn to shrug it off and laugh...or...

Reply

BillUSA

8/15/2014 02:19:43 am

"Jason-and-his-keyboard attract the very best kind of people."

Does that include charlatans like yourself?

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Clint Knapp

8/15/2014 03:13:04 am

Of course not. Jesus DNA makes Steve completely immune to the trappings of human fallibility. Nothing he ever says could be duplicitous, untrue or of ill-gotten motive, for the sparkly touch of divinity is upon him and all he proves deserve to carry his surname.

EP

8/15/2014 05:54:26 am

Fact: Akhenaten wanted to keep the Jesus blood pure. That's why his family tree looks like a series of loops. ('Cause he he had daughters with his sister and THEN their daughters!)

EP

8/15/2014 02:35:20 pm

From what I understand the term "hooked" when applied to a character is perfectly standard in orthographics. It signifies that a character has, well, a hooked stroke added to it ('ę' is the "hooked e", 'ǫ' is the "hooked o", etc.).

In other words, Wolter cannot copyright "hooked x" as the name for his favorite rune any more than he can copyright "capital x" to refer to 'X', whether in the field of books about ancient artefacts or elsewhere.

Anyone want to contact Wolter's lawyer to see what he has to say about this?

Reply

EP

8/15/2014 02:36:30 pm

Pardon the formatting hickup - the hooks go below the letters.

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.

8/15/2014 03:46:01 pm

if you half read him, you almost have
a doorway into James Joyce, you then
start to pluck apart the basics inside the
English language. I told Gunn the utilization
of the HOOK!D X by a scribe implied
a change in the Old but literate Pagan
culture, its something a Christianized scribe
would do. I think it is later on, and does
sometimes crop up into the 1600s in a
legitimate way. not everything is an 1800s hoax.

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Gunn Sinclair

8/16/2014 04:55:25 am

., sometimes you are a little bit lucid: "expressing or expressed clearly; easy to understand. 2 of or denoting intervals of sanity between periods of insanity or dementia."

I don't recall being told about the utilization of the HOOK!D X by a scribe, by you, however you seem to have hit upon a viable, historical approach to the medieval use of the hooked x. We're talking abstractly about the transition from an ordinary x to a special hooked x, approaching (and during) medieval times.

Indeed, the Kensington Runestone party had indications of being Christian, so that you cannot be off-base on this one. The expression of horror carved into the stone document was a Christian expression. Not many folks could read and write and carve back then, so it is fairly easy, using logic, to assume that an educated, Christianized scribe of sorts did indeed author the 1362 medieval-American document.

This is not to say that the KRS was encircled with a dozen or more aged, triangulated stoneholes at the time of its carving. No, I believe the stonehole-marked Runestone Hill existed as an inland "marker," and the party knew of this, and for this reason deposited the KRS on the knoll. People were expected to return for some other reason having to do with inland navigation (and the Chippewa River). I myself have discovered that if one were to draw a line between Duluth (end of westward sailing) and the Whetstone River area of extreme SE S. Dakota, the line will cross Runestone Hill...which to me indicates that Runestone Hill was a pre-existing geographical marker.

The various stoneholes in the MN/SD region may very well pre-date the KRS, going back towards the end of the Viking Age (about 1100).

Again, to sum up some of my earnest viewpoints, it is that the "lost" (de-Christianized?) Greenlanders may have had as much interest in going down into the center of N. America, where two oceanic waterways dwindle down and converge, as interest they had in, of all places, VINLAND.

Consider that those who peopled Viking Newfoundland were from Scandinavian "outposts," such as Greenland, if you will. I think, personally, that Vinland was around the St. Lawrence Seaway, and for several hundred years. The Sagas speak of it, later the KRS spoke of it. The water-going Scandinavians were not content to explore the coastlines. No, they wanted to see where the inland waterways went. When they discovered that two oceanic waterways converge at a far inland point in now-a-day S. Dakota, just across from the MN border, they "LANDED" along the Whetstone River and began to carve numerous stoneholes and related carvings in an effort to take up the land in that important spot.

Not many people are able to comprehend what I've just disclosed, yet ., I think you are getting it. Just a guess--and not necessarily meant as encouragement to purposely digress with the purpose of irritation in mind. Let's get with the program, Duckie, since you are able to. We will watch you clean up yer act, as much as the good Dr. was not able to.

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.

8/16/2014 05:13:03 am

Gunn, you are spot on!

Gunn

8/17/2014 06:34:02 am

Thank you, ..

As a footnote to your burgeoning database of esoteric knowledge, stoneholes were used in conjunction with claiming land. But there are other uses, including the possible use of Runestone Hill as an inland navigation topographical landmark, as indicated by being encircled by numerous stonehole rocks. The very reason the KRS memorial stone was erected in 1362 in that specific location had everything to do with the survivors believing that Scandinavians would be returning to that site...which, again, in on a line between Duluth and the Whetstone River.

What am I saying? I'm very clearly saying that I believe Runestone Hill existed as a man-made landmark, featuring a natural hill and manmade stoneholes in rocks...not unlike those in, say, medieval Iceland.

Duckie, furthermore, this was about keeping secrets, in this case, a secret about waterways from the ocean reaching into the very center of North America. I'm also saying that the secret is out (in part due to Scott Wolter) that the clusters of stoneholes along the Whetstone River in SD reveal a medieval Scandinavian presence.

It is not coincidental that these stoneholes are located where two far inland waterways converge...in wonderful sheep raising country. We may see busy monks with protection. But then what?

Well, for one thing, numerous pesky stoneholes ALERTING us to look more closely for medieval evidences in a particular area--as was the example set in 1960's Newfoundland, led by an archaeology team looking for what they figured "must be there."

Normandie de Kent

2/9/2017 03:14:29 pm

You are pretending or forgetting that the Scandinavians had fought with the Native American locals, and were chased of eventually from their northern colony. The Native Americans already had a bad relationship with the Viking invaders, and they were trying to another people's homeland of thousands of years. The Scandos would not of made it far with the Millions of Native Tribes congregated along the waterways, like the all the mound builder cultures at their healthiest and strongest. Every time I hear all these alternate reality hypothesis, the most important factor is always left out, the Native American people, they would not of allowed a bunch of aggressive white dudes into their homelands, without a fight. And if there was any contact like the Spanish, there would be more evidence for it, not just scattered rocks with wholes in them. The Natives knew how to work with stone and chisels. As far as the westford knight , he was a Native American. The Newport Tower was Benedict Arnolds grandfather who built a windmill out of stones in the 1600s. I seen a picture of one exactly like it in Somerset England where that family hailed from. The KRS are fake that has been proven over and over.

lil ole me....

8/15/2014 04:12:50 pm

if he deleats this string, which includes a few quips
about james joyce, as he thinks over what A&E can
pull, i am merely asking him to become a film critic
as he covers his French Derriere astutely. they know
their science is inferior to Nova's but if Jason hits them
hard like as if Roger Ebert had to trash Plan Nine From
Outer Space, they will back away because critics think
alike. if he's a blogger or a sometimes TV show critic,
who writes good books, they feel they can go into BvLLdoZe
mode without pity. they yawn at the idea they are making
trash TV worse. correction --- badder and badder and
worstester and more horridly badder and worster! you get
the picture. he needs a cerebral high ground. TV borrows
from film. dip into movie critic vitriol and then be apt!!!!

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Kal

8/18/2014 06:25:04 pm

If the KRS was real, the speculation of this hooked ex thing would matter, but since it is obviously made up, and just about anyone from those parts know it was, there should be no conspiracy, and no further discussion of the rune stone. The farmer carved it himself. Get over it, AU.

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Lynn Brant

8/19/2014 01:36:55 am

I find it far more likely, since the carving is pretty sophisticated, that someone else produced the stone, and Olof Ohman, for one reason or another, agreed to "find" it.

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